ANJAAN -THE FATE OF HIS FAVOURITE POEM

BY ALI PETER JOHN

Lalji Pandey was a soft and sensitive rebel in the family of a school teacher in Banaras (now better known as Varanasi) and lived on the banks of the Ganga .He grew up to be a very popular Hindi poet all over North India and took the pen name Anjaan (the unknown).He was soon a very popular poet and read his poems at some of the biggest kavi sammelans and mushairas .He attained new peaks of success and fame when he wrote "Madhubala" which was a parody of Dr Harivanshrai Bachchan's "Madhushala"which had ushered in a new era in Hindi poetry and Hindi literature . Anjaan , the poet who wanted to stay unknown (anjaan) had now to come out and take a bow as a leading poet...

His father asked him to get married and he had children , two sons and a daughter . He soon realised that writing poetry and attending kavi sammelan and mushiarhs were good enough to make a name but not good enough to make two ends meet for the family...

It was Bombay and films that were calling one more popular poet and Anjaan landed in the city of dreams like one of the millions of unknown faces. If Anjaan thought it was going to be a bed of roses all the way, he was going to be in for a shock for the next twenty-two years . He did not find any work as a song writer as there was a tough competition in the field already and some of the leading poets and lyricist were ruling and refusing to leave the scene which even they had found after a great deal of struggle of their own.

Anjaan however refused to leave Bombay and could not think of going back to Banaras a defeated man. He continued living as the unknown poet in the lanes and by lanes of Bombay in guest houses and chawls and gave tuitions in Hindi to the children of rich parents in places like Malabar Hill and Marine Drive and started making better money which he mostly sent home in Banaras and spent very little money on himself .His needs were very frugal .All he needed were some reasonably good clothes , preferably all in white .The only luxuries he could afford was a room , some food in some cheap hotels and a quarter of country liquor at Pascal's Bar in Khar Danda where some of the greatest legends of today have had their first sips of country liquor.

It was only sometime in the sixties that he got his first chance to write for a film called "Godaan "and his poetry in the songs was appreciated, but nothing came from it. He kept walking the roads of the city till he one day saw the poster of a film called "Jab Jab Phool Khile "and fell madly in love with the painting of the actress Nanda . His love was so intense that he instantly wrote a poem , the first two lines of which were "Jidhar dekhoo teri tasveer nazar aati hai, teri tasveer mujhe meri takdeer nazar aati hai ". He had written many such poems which were waiting for appreciation and recognition, but this poem he wrote about his love for Nanda was more dear to him than his life, he believed.

Years passed and Anjaan was still walking the roads of the city which had first called him. Luck was finally going to smile on him and it did when he met the filmmaker Prakash Mehra. He started writing the songs for almost all the films of Mehra and the best happened when he started writing songs for Mehra's films made with Amitabh Bachchan , one big hit after another and all the songs in them also super-duper hits in the world of music.

Other big filmmakers also asked Anjaan to write their songs and he had now shifted to an apartment in Juhu with his younger brother , Gopal Pandey , who was one of the top most publicists of the time .He continued to be the silent and sensitive poet that he was and one of his big admirers was the angry young man , Amitabh Bachchan and it was a mutual admiration society as Anjaan believed that his fortune change because of Amitabh Bachchan....

Amitabh was doing a film called "Maahaan" for two producers from the south and which was being directed by S. Raamnathan who had played a very important part in the early days of Amitabh ,who was playing a triple role in the film .Amitabh who was now very close to Anjaan had heard about the poem he had written for Nanda and had loved it .He needed a song to be picturised on him and Waheeda Rehman (His favourite actress ). He remembered Anjaan's poem and told him that he needed it for himself for the film. Anjaan was in an emotional fix. He had not even shown the poem to anyone as he considered if to be his personal possession, but on the other hand , there were Amitabh Bachchan ,who he had all the respect for .

I know how Anjaan had cried before parting with his favourite poem.The poem was tuned into a song and was sung by Amitabh himself and Anjaan was very happy . It was suppose to be a major highlight of the film.

It was the day of the first day and the first show of "Maahaan" at the Minerva theatre in Bombay .The entire Industry was invited Anjaan had asked me to sit with him ,I didn't know exactly why even though he was a great friend who deserved all the respect. All was fine till before the song could start and Anjaan was positively looking nervous .The song began with Amitabh singing the first two lines to Waheeda Rehman on the telephone and then there was a sound of hooding and Anjaan started crying bitterly like a little boy whose favourite toy had been smashed by someone .The song were later dropped from the film , which was also one of the biggest flops in Amitabh's career .

Believe it or not, Anjaan was never the same again .His son Sameer Anjaan Pandey came to Bombay and made it bigger than his father and Anjaan gradually faded into the background. A serious ear infection affected his brain and he went into a coma from which he never recovered , Sameer got a collection of his poems in Hindi titled "Ganga Kinare Ka Chhora" published and it was released by Amitabh Bachchan and Anjaan was present even though he was "unknown" to the world around him and what was happening to that man and poet called Anjaan.